The Duke's Wager (28 page)

“Well,” she said, staring at Regina sharply, “you don’t look like a serving wench to me. But I do need an extra pair of hands tonight. And Jack Potter’s a fair man. Still, I don’t know what to make of you at all, I don’t. You talk like a lady, you look like a lady, but your face and figure could get you a snugger bed than the one you’ll have to share with Lucy, I can tell you. But I don’t have time to jabber with you. So if you’re not a thief, or a slut with a new game, I’ll use you tonight, and we’ll see what happens. But take off that fancy coat and put on one of Lucy’s dresses, because I can tell you, my customers won’t half believe you waiting on them with that Paris gown or whatever it is you’re wearing.
Lucy
!”
she bellowed.

A stout young smiling girl with black curls clustered all around her broad red face appeared in the doorway, laden with tankards of ale.

“This here is Regina. Stop gawping. Take her to your room double quick and give her a dress to wear, and tell her the lay of the land. Quick. For she’s to help you out tonight in the taproom. And be quick about it,” she roared, and spinning on her heel, she rushed off into the kitchens.

Regina felt a bizarre sense of disbelief when she surveyed herself in the small mirror in Lucy’s little room. The dress she had been given to wear was none too clean, and far too low cut and too short at the ankle.

Lucy’s dress was an absurd costume for her. It was too brightly colored, of a cheap material, tight at the waist, and shockingly low at the neck. But a quick glance at Lucy’s approving stare sank her hopes of crying off and donning her own severe blue walking dress again. Still, when she noticed with alarm how any little inhalation threatened the security of her precariously concealed breasts, she knew that she could never leave the room in it. But Lucy just grinned, and said, “Won’t you be the sensation tonight,” and after insisting that Regina unfasten the tight chignon she was wearing and “Fluff out yer hair a bit, love, so they won’t think you’re going to bite them,” she left to the bellowing echoes of Mrs. Stors’s
“Lucy!”
that rang through even the incredible hub-bub that rose from the inn.

Regina drew her hair back and tied it at the nape of her neck and, after resisting an impulse to tear off the dress and change back into her own clothes, she ruefully remembered the three coins that clung together for comfort in the bottom of her purse and, straightening her posture, she went wearily down the narrow flight of dark stairs and into the taproom.

It seemed to her that it was almost fantastic how the uproar seemed to quieten when she stepped into the room. The customers, a roiling sea of hearty countrymen, with a few rough-voiced women sprinkled among them, appeared to blur before her eyes. She looked down in confusion.

When she closed her eyes and waited for the earth to swallow her up, the noise level began to rise again. She had no idea of how out of context she had looked, gliding into the crowded, smoky room, with her gleaming chestnut hair pulled back from her pale, finely featured face, her gently curved figure clearly delineated in the ill-fitting gown, her slender form hesitantly entering the room. But when she opened her wide green eyes, she saw the tables full of men beckoning, “Aye girl, some service,” “Two bitters,” “Some food here, Lass,” and remembering Lucy’s hurried instructions, she tried to place their faces and their orders correctly.

It seemed to be going well, it is not so difficult, she thought, when she could think, as she rushed from the tap to the tables, from the steaming kitchens to the uproarious tables. It was hot, there was a strong mixture of scents, of ale, of human sweat, of woodsmoke. But the patrons here were a casual lot, she thought. They were considerate enough, she thought, returning to the room with her eighth tray of small beer, for when she got an order wrong, they only laughed and handed the food about themselves. She could not distinguish one face from another, nor one voice from another in the uproar. But Lucy had passed her in her travels and had whispered, “Keep it going, love, you’ll do fine.”

The heat of the room had brought a pink flush to her cheeks, the drawn-back hair had escaped from its confines and drifted along her neck, and she was looking in confusion for the rightful recipient of her tray of beverages when she felt a strong arm clasp her around her waist and a merrily drunken voice slur, “Aye, here’s the best thing I’ve seen in the market today.”

She looked down in horror at the widely grinning man who had captured her and, trying to keep the liquids from tipping over, tried to escape his embrace. But a moment later he had risen and, taking her with his other arm, he held her still and pushed his sweaty, grinning face close to hers. “Give us a kiss, girl,” he chortled. “Spice up the brew.” A second later, she was swung away from him by another man, older and with the dirty face of a working farmer. “Don’t be a pig, Harry,” he laughed. “I did see her first, and I’m the one she’s longing for,” and with that, he captured her waist, groped at her buttocks with his free hand, and pressed her toward him for a kiss. As she felt his mouth upon her own, she gave a little shriek and tipped the tray, sending it splashing down on the table, and on all its occupants. Laughter rose up around her, and she pushed away from the man who had grasped her and, without thinking, swung her hand around and slapped him soundly on the face. The laughter rose even higher at that, and, tears in her eyes, she rushed from the room.

Mrs. Stors found her standing in the hallway, trembling. “It won’t do,” the woman said half regretfully. “It won’t do at all. You don’t have it in you, my girl. A serving wench can’t behave like a debutante. There’s no harm in the men, none at all. But they do expect a kiss and a tweak, or a cuddle and a saucy word with their victuals. Won’t do to discourage trade. Oh they’ll forget this soon enough, but you won’t do. You’ll never get used to it.”

An unexpected light of sympathy came into the other woman’s eyes.

“I don’t know your game, and I don’t want to. But there’s a bed here for you tonight. And some victuals as well. And a few shillings for your night’s work, but you’ll have to be going in the morning. Try something else, my dear.”

“No,” said Regina stiffly. ‘Thank you for your efforts. But I don’t deserve pay for this night. Nor will I disturb Lucy any further. If I may wait for the coach in your…parlor, I’ll be gone in the morning.”

The woman’s face turned stony.

“Too much the fine lady for my charity, are you? Well suit yourself, but the private parlor’s engaged by a gentleman. So if you don’t want Lucy’s bed, you’ll wait in the street, my dear,” and she turned and left.

Regina, regretting her rash words, went back to Lucy’s room and, leaving the detested dress neatly upon the bed, dressed as warmly as she could.

Then, wrapping her cloak securely around herself, she quietly left the inn. She could see, in the fitful moonlight, that there was a place to sit on the side of the building, a long low bench there, she thought, for indigent coach travelers to rest upon. She sighed, grateful for the secluded spot, and settled down. Here, no one entering or leaving the inn could see her. She felt rather like a leper anyway, tonight. As she sat back and closed her eyes, the foolishness of her rash actions came to her. She was still hungry, still homeless, and still a long way from wherever her new home was to be. She would, she thought, take the coach however far she could still afford to go. And then she would have to see how she could fare. At least, she thought wearily, I shall finally know what exactly does happen to homeless young women.

And she closed her eyes and tried to doze until morning would bring the coach and the last leg of the journey that she could envision. So she did not see the slight cloaked figure leave the inn and, after a moment, walk quietly up behind her. Nor did she see the moment of hesitation, when it raised one hand to touch her shoulder, and then, after a pause, withdrew it. The figure stood, irresolute, while a cloud chased away from the moon only long enough to light the fair hair like a beacon. Then, with a small shrug, the figure turned and walked silently back into the Crown and Gaiter again, and with one last long glance at the shadowy recess where Regina sat, quietly closed the door again.

XVI

One more stop, Regina thought to herself as the coach bounced noisily through the morning mists. Only one more stop, time to linger in the warmth over one more cup of some hot liquid, before her purse emptied, and then she would have to do something. Only what, she still wondered.

She was now beyond hunger, beyond weariness, in that strange state of mind that exhaustion and deprivation brings. She felt enormously older and wiser than anyone else in her world, in that peculiarly exalted state of mind that extended sleeplessness can bring. She had not slept on the hard bench last night, rather she had sat awake as the night cold had seeped into her body until she embraced it as naturally as the warmth of a fire. She felt cold no more. And she could now review her future as dispassionately as if it were someone else’s, with an Olympian detachment. Whatever else she did, she vowed, at last she would make no more pretense. At last she would be herself.

For, it had occurred to her during the long night, from the moment that her uncle had brought her to town, she had been untrue to herself. She had been living up to other people’s expectations. First, she had pretended to be her uncle’s cosseted and loved niece, when, if she had been honest, she would have realized that they scarcely knew each other. And she should have, she condemned herself, been setting about the task of finding her own place in the world. When Aunt Harriet had come, she should have been firm in her resolve; not for a moment should she have encouraged the woman to hope that she might eventually settle upon poor benighted Cousin Harry. She should not even have accepted his invitation to the theater simply for the expedient pleasure of being taken out for a night on the town. She should rather have taken the money that she was offered and fled to Miss Bekins, without standing on any ceremony.

In a veritable orgy of self-disgust, she had sat upon the hard bench in the inn courtyard and condemned herself like a prisoner in the dock. She should not have nodded dumbly and accepted the Duke’s mad game plan. She should have forgotten about her dignity and screamed and shrieked and run free, without sitting like a fool and listening to his bizarre theories of self-respect and honor.

Indeed, in the case of the Duke, and her every encounter with him, she had been wrong. She had allowed herself to become caught in his web, to be fascinated by him, to almost welcome the verbal jousts she had with him, and, she realized with sinking heart, to enjoy other contacts with him as well. What arrogance she had had, she bitterly flailed herself, to think for a moment that she could deal with him as an equal. He had bested her every step of the way.

And then to cap it all, she should never, never have accepted the Marquis’s protection. Never have pretended to be ‘Lady Berry’ simply for a safe harbor to rest in.

In all, she had pretended. In all, she had taken the easy way. She fairly hated herself now. And when she thought of those few moments in the frozen garden with Sinjin, how she allowed herself to be deluded into imagining he was going to make her an offer! Then the shame she felt when she remembered how she had rationalized her feelings in his embrace overrode all else. Even her appearance in poor Lucy’s foolish little serving dress could not approach the self-disgust she felt at that. No, she had had enough of pretense. But, she thought, as the coach slowed at the gray stone inn, The Lion Crest, she had come to that particular conclusion too late.

When she stepped down and had her bag handed to her, she offered the coachman the next to last coins that she had. But he shook his head and declared loudly, much to the interest of the fellow passengers that were listening, that the sum wasn’t enough. She had misunderstood, she thought sadly, and offered him the last coins in her purse, shaking her head to signify that there was naught else. He gave her a long hard look of regret. For, he declared in an undervoice, if he had known she hadn’t the whole fare, he would have arranged some other way for her to pay him his due. But the objections of the passengers on the coach as to the delay merely caused him to drop the money into his pocket and sigh about lost opportunities. And the coach rattled off into the dim gray morning.

The mist was turning to a soft, sullen cold rain, and Regina turned to face the inn. She felt no further fear or trepidation. It seemed that there were few other depredations that she could suffer. She merely picked up her case and walked slowly, taking shelter under the overhanging eaves in front of the inn. She stood silently for a few moments, knowing that she could not go into the inn without the money for even a dish of tea. So she stood quietly, wondering with a strange sense of inappropriate laughter, about where she was to run to from here.

A moment later the door swung open, and the landlord, a huge bear of a man with bristling sideburns and a completely bald head, stepped out and looked at her with a welcoming smile. Yet he looked the sort of man who did not often smile, it was a forced expression for him. Regina was taken aback by the false welcome that seemed pasted onto his beefy face.

“Oh do come in, m’am,” he said, bowing low. “I never thought you would just stand and wait outside in the rain.”

She looked at him with amazement. What sort of new game was this?

“I’m afraid,” she said quietly, “that you have mistaken me. I…I am simply waiting for the rain to let up before I continue down the road.”

“Oh no,” he said, picking up her traveling case. “I was expecting you, m’am.”

“No,” she said, seeking to get her case back as he turned toward the door. “I have no bookings here. You mistake me, I tell you.”